The wind carried the scent of ash.
Five figures moved through the mist, their silver-gray robes now streaked with black dust. None of them spoke. Even the sound of their footsteps seemed afraid to echo.
They had fled the drained lake before dawn. Yet even as the sun climbed, its light felt… wrong.
Too pale. Too distant.
The leader of the group—Sister Vale—tightened her grip on her spear. The sigil of the severed artery on her hood was cracked, as though something had bitten through it.
> "He let us live," whispered one of the younger disciples. "Why?"
Vale didn't answer. Her throat was dry.
The memory of that boy—those calm, almost pitying eyes—haunted her. The way he'd stood among corpses as if he were the silence itself.
When they reached the sect's outer gates, the guardians bowed and stepped aside.
The Sanctum of Logic loomed before them—pillars of white stone, etched with equations that pulsed faintly with light. Here, emotion was forbidden. Thought was worship.
Vale knelt in the Hall of Silence. The air inside hummed faintly with spiritual pressure. From above, a circle of Elders observed through veiled glass, their faces hidden behind mirrored masks.
> "Report," one of them commanded.
Vale's voice was steady—almost.
> "We found the disturbance near the Black Lake. The energy was... unstable. It defied all measurement."
A pause.
> "And the source?"
Her fingers clenched around her spear.
> "A man. Or something wearing a man's form. He commanded an Essence we could not classify. It fed on emotion—fear, pain, memory."
Murmurs rippled among the masked elders. Logic Sect doctrine forbade any essence derived from emotion. Such power was considered contaminated thought—chaos born from the first rebellion against the Eighth Sun.
> "Describe him," said another voice, older, sharper.
> "Young," she said slowly. "Eyes like mirrors of the void. He spoke of logic—and of fear. As if both were truths."
The chamber fell silent.
Then, the central Elder leaned forward. The reflection of his mask fractured, showing faint cracks of crimson light beneath.
> "There was once a theory," he murmured. "That emotion itself could be refined into thought. That fear could birth understanding."
Vale's eyes widened.
> "Forbidden Logic… the Third Principle."
> "Yes," the Elder said. "The one erased after the fall of the Eighth Sun."
A low hum filled the chamber. Symbols flared across the walls—ancient script rewriting itself in red.
> "Elder," another protested, "reviving those records is treason. We sealed them for a reason."
> "And yet the reason has returned," the crimson Elder replied. "Perhaps the seal never held."
He turned to Vale.
> "Find this man again. Study him if you can. Kill him if you must. But bring back what he leaves behind."
> "And if he is beyond study?" she asked quietly.
The Elder's voice grew colder.
> "Then let fear teach us what logic cannot."
The chamber dimmed.
For a moment, Vale swore she could hear laughter—soft, distant, echoing through the cracks of her own mind.
When she looked down, a thin line of shadow had crept across the marble floor, pulsing faintly, as if following her heartbeat.
---
That night, as the Silent Veins prepared for their next departure, Vale wrote a single phrase in her mission log before burning it:
> "He spoke like a man who had forgotten what mercy was."
The ashes curled, and in the smoke, for just an instant, she saw his eyes again—black, calm, endless.
🕯️ Author's Note
While Aaryan steps deeper into forbidden power, the world begins to move against him. The Logic Sect has stirred ancient doctrines—truths once buried with the Eighth Sun itself.
💬 What did you think of this perspective shift?
Next chapter: "The Temple of Faces" — Aaryan descends into the ruin beneath the drained lake, where the first secret of the Sha's origin awaits.